Group 1: Women and Eugenics

(taken from http://www.fashion-era.com/images/Victorians/swimearlyvics400new.jpg)

Authored by: Ryne J. Cantwell and Kali A. Enyeart

Published: 2007

For many, eugenics, “the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding,” is a science of evil, led by racists and fueled by discrimination (McPhail). However, when this science is placed within the contexts of its time, it proves to be a significant catalyst for the nineteenth-century women’s movement, a time when women began to break away from the conventional Victorian ideals of a woman and redefine themselves through a new and modern perspective. By providing women with ideological support to strengthen their desires as well as empowering opportunities to improve themselves, eugenics significantly helped women not only further their movement, but also free themselves from the confines of the Victorian era’s repressive expectations of a woman and her roles.

Eugenics: A Catalyst for the Social Uprising and Sexual Liberation of Victorian Women

The Changing Role of a Woman During the Victorian Era

(taken from http://www.antiquebottles.com/rl/tc/DiamondWomen.jpg)

During the Victorian Era, the role of a woman was one of powerlessness and confinement. Women were considered inferior to men and were expected to accept their subordinate places to men in the sexual hierarchy.

From birth, women were taught to be passive and submissive. They were taught to obey their fathers and to engage themselves solely in activities that made them more attractive marriage candidates. As Betty Friedan reveals in The Feminine Mystique, because many parents and a number of educators felt that “girls could not use as housewives” the education they would receive from formal schooling, many girls were not enrolled in school (23). Thus, during this time, few women received formal educations.

In addition to education, women were also discouraged from entering the public sphere. Victorian society defined a woman’s role as one that revolved around the domestic sphere of the home and family. As a result, Victorian women seldom went out by themselves and rarely sought employment outside of the home. Yet, as the Victorian Era progressed, women became more and more anxious to break free from these conventional ideals. Specifically, women yearned to better themselves both academically and financially as well as gain entrance into the public sphere.

Interestingly, through eugenics, many women found the ideological support necessary to make this transition.

Eugenics Gives Women the Ideological Support They Need

(taken from http://www.blonnet.com/life/2004/02/09/images/2004020900190401.jpg)

1. Education During this time, many eugenicists argued for the education of women. They felt that, in order to create a eugenically sound society, women must receive a formal education. For instance, in a speech, entitled “The Regeneration of Society,” Lillian Harman points out that many eugenicists felt that if “a girl were brought up with any rational knowledge of herself and of the pains and perils as well as the pleasures of maternity, the dangers of indiscriminate procreation in her case would be reduced to a minimum.” Similarly, Helen Gardener notes in her work, Pulpit, Pew, and Cradle, that many eugenicists claimed that as “no man c[ould] give…brains to his children if their mother is the victim of superstition and priestcraft,” practices common to uneducated women (2).